Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Nissan Says Its First Semi-Autonomous Model Will Arrive in 2017

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Nissan’s first semi-autonomous driving-assistance tech will debut in Europe next year on the Qashqai crossover.

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Called Piloted Drive 1.0, the system will act as a traffic-jam assist like that found on the Volvo XC90, which means it can operate only at lower speeds in a single highway lane with at least one car in front. It’s part of Nissan’s four-year plan to ramp up autonomous assists on lower-priced models. By 2018, Piloted Drive will include an ability to automatically change lanes and swerve to avoid road hazards. By 2020, it will be able to figure out city intersections without any driver inputs. Nissan is debuting the system at Geneva on a Qashqai concept, shown above.

The Qashqai is one of two additional crossovers Nissan plans to sell in the U.S., and while we’re not sure of an exact launch date, we don’t think 2017 would be out of the question given how semi-autonomous assists (and the crossover market itself) are rapidly maturing. What’s out of the question, for the next few decades anyway, is an imaginary connected city where fully autonomous electric cars park and re-park themselves while their owners sleep, all while powering an entire condo and allowing a utopia where everyone gets along in harmony. Nissan seems bullish on the concept, though: